A court has ruled that when border guards ordered British-Sikh Shaminder Puri to remove his turban at Warsaw airport in October 2009 they were "acting within the law".

Judge Jacek Tyszka ruled that though Warsaw airport border guards had violated his dignity when he was passing through controls at the airport, the action was not illegal under Polish law.

"Such an inspection may be unpleasant but it is sometimes necessary," the judge ruled.

Puri, who was not in court to hear the verdict, told the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper by telephone yesterday that "I am disappointed by the verdict. Now we must carefully read of the judge's ruling and consider an appeal".

Shaminder Puri, a fluent speaker of Polish after he studied for a degree in the country 30 years ago, had demanded a public apology from the border guards and media which had covered the case, and 10,000 euro be paid to charity.

He says that border guards demanded he take off his turban so it could be checked on several other occasions after the first.

On one occasion when he refused to take off his turban – which is a religious symbol for Sikhs – he was given a financial penalty and not allowed to board a waiting plane.

Puri also had demanded a judicial ruling banning the demand for Sikhs to remove their turbans in order to be searched at border control posts in the future in Poland.

After the incident in October 2009, Puri sought the support of the Helsinki Foundation for human rights and brought the legal action against the border guards.

Puri has written of the incident: "No Sikh was trying to evade the security check. All Sikhs were asking for was to conduct the check in a dignified manner - if scanner or other evidence suggested that a security threat existed, then all law abiding people would naturally submit to all other intrusive checks – a fact that the Komandant [sic] of the Security Service seemed totally deaf to." (pg)